The 20th Century Song Book, 1904, by
The Chattanooga Medicine Company

Until the 1920s or so, singing and
playing instruments at home took the
place of radio, television, tapes, CDs
and records. (Dancers danced to music
boxes in the 18th century, believe it
or not. Isn't that wonderful?)
Representatives of music publishers
hawked sheet music of the latest songs
in bars and other public places.

Patent-medicine maker The
Chattanooga Medicine Company, of
Chattanooga, in Tennessee, a southern
American state, exploited this by mingling music for
popular songs with the comments of
happy users of their medicine.
(By the way, most of these songs
struck me as very nostalgic,
and include some in black dialect,
hankerin' for the good ol' days on the
plantation, which are easy for whites
to sing. The singers on the cover are
white, descended perhaps from
plantation owners, not slaves. All the
people pictured inside giving
testimonials are also white, typical
for patent medicine advertising.)

Written when the century was young,
the title makes me a little nostalgic,
too, for a fading era, our 20th
century. Hopes were probably high in
1904, just as they are now for the
21st